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Is Wal-Mart making my eco-dream come true?
UPDATE 7/15/09 2:53pm -- Sam Eaton previews Wal-Mart's announcement on Marketplace today.
Anyone who has followed the Greenwash Brigade knows that my personal eco-dream is a single Sustainability Index that is easy for all consumers to understand, and that applies to everything from Acme Iron Bird Seed to a Trident Missile.
I think it would enable consumers who care - but who don't care enough to research products on the Skin Deep Database before heading to the mall - to make better decisions on every purchase. And that they would, if it were valid and clearly placed on every product.
Daniel Goleman agrees with me. It seems WalMart agrees with me, too - and they're making it happen.
My job is to write about greenwash, but until the index (and the messy, messy details underlaying it) are public, it's impossible to say whether it is or it isn't. The big W has been making significant steps for a while, so maybe they'll do it right. The further I read, the more hope I have, because they seem to have the right players at the table - including my hometown big box brand Target and a host of life-cycle-analysis experts.
On the other hand, I have to agree with Gunther: "Who chose Wal-Mart to be America's regulator?" I'm not sure I'd even trust Seventh Generation, a brand that has played a leading role in the corporate sustainability movement and in providing product information to consumers for two decades, to take this on! And Wal-Mart still has a long way to go to gain my trust.
For the moment, I'm glad someone is doing it (even if it is the biggest of the behemoths).
It will make a difference.
I think it's HUGELY positive that a mainstream company as large as Walmart is turning their practices around to include a sustainability index. They can truly make a huge difference in creating public awareness of carbon footprints. I applaud the direction Walmart is taking.
I agree that it's interesting and I'm relieved to see Wal-Mart does not plan to "own" the index over the long term and that the Sustainability Consortium has a balanced network of professionals. However, this product index raises the same issue we have been addressing for almost two years which is the inherent tension of product vs. company assessments. I don't think the former can be fairly evaluated separate from the latter, like an unraveled strand of DNA.
I find it ironic and troubling that Wal-Mart- -despite their sophistication with LCAs and whacking their supply chain into submission-- still continues to wreak havoc on communities both socially and environmentally; are less philanthropic as a company than any of their competitors; and that they have not made more credible headway in changing manufacturing processes overseas where most of their products are from.
The Goodguide that Janne references is a B Corporation which is encouraging. Maybe Wal-Mart should read the manifestos in Corporation2020.org, or help build a sustainability index that will help it critically evaluate itself.
This said, having a well vetted sustainability index for commercial and residential consumers will be a splendid addition.
This is a really exciting development. In the building industry, the release of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Rating System has catalized an explosion in interest in green building. As soon as there was an agreed upon metric (whether perfect or not), the entire building industry suddenly scrambled to meet its requirements.
Due to Walmart's sheer size, if they put out a reasonable standard for evaluating sustainability, manufacturers and suppliers will likely fall over themselves to beat the performance of their competitors. Transparency will be critical to its success (as has largely been the case with the consensus-based LEED standard). I look forward to seeing the details of Walmart's Sustainability Index.
In the interim, Eco Home Magazine published a thorough article on selecting green consumer products in the absence of a consensus standard: http://www.ecohomemagazine.com/green-products/keeping-them-honest.aspx
I think it is a positive step that Walmart is making such a commitment. I was also pleased to learn that Walmart is taking a proactive approach to increasing the energy efficiency in their new construction, as a high-efficiency Walmart opened in a rural area of my city, Kansas City, KS. Hopefully, this will become a trend with more retailers.
<a href="http://www.wycowest.com/wkckhtml/plazaatthespeedway/walmart.cfm" target="_blank">High Efficiency Walmart in Kansas City, KS</a><br>
<a href="http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/9462.aspx" target="_blank">Technology Utilized</a>
This is a positive step within the current context, but it's worth remembering that true environmental and economic sustainability will only happen with a return to economies that are rooted as much as possible in the predominance of smaller, local/regional businesses and supply chains, rather than gigantic global corporations like Wal-mart.
Go, Wal-Mart!
I'm so glad the world's biggest retailer is making such a move - helping to reinvigorate some of my pride in being American.
But of course we all have to monitor what comes out of this process, identify its shortcomings, and educate the public so that both their Sustainability Index gets better and people can best judge the index.
I've been arguing for a while now that products should have a carbon label just like food now has a nutrition label. I hope their index includes such a tool.
And my Economics professors have always talked of the great things a market economy can do assuming perfect information (which of course was always missing). Will Wal-Mart's index help consumers get a step closer to the perfect information they need to create a better world through their purchasing decisions?
We'll see...
